


When Marriage Solves Nothing, or Patrick Finally Boards the Clue Bus

by MrsBarnes



Series: Roller Coaster Romance [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (again), Aggro Jonny, Alternate Universe, Bad Sex, Bickering, Domesticity, Dumb boys being dumb, Fluff and Humor, Inadvisable betting, M/M, Marriage, Nervousness, Oblivious!Patrick, That's also somehow good, Wedding Fluff, water bottles, waterbed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:33:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsBarnes/pseuds/MrsBarnes
Summary: “I—” he gulps, caught out and ashamed of himself. “I was nervous.”Jonny crinkles his eyebrows and aggressively demands, “So?” like that wasn’t the beginning and end of Patrick’s reasoning. Like nerves had no bearing on today, which might be fair, to someone who holds the weight of an entire country’s expectations on his shoulders every time he skates into the Olympics.Patrick has no such experience, and therefore feels moderately overwhelmed by Jonny’s question. And also kind of insulted. “So?” Patrick squeaks back. “So we just got married. For life! Of course I was nervous!”





	When Marriage Solves Nothing, or Patrick Finally Boards the Clue Bus

 

“Oh god.”

“What now?” Jackie asks in the voice that tells Patrick he’s crossed some very important line somewhere.

Since he’s literally done nothing but stare in shock at the open expanse in front of him for the last twenty minutes, Patrick honestly cannot say how he’s gone from awesome big brother to bane of her existence so quickly. He looks down at his suit, tailored specifically for the occasion, then back up to the busy room where, he’s sad to see, everyone he’s ever known patiently waits for him to enter. None of them know he’s standing at the mostly closed double doors, heart in his throat and sweaty palms wringing around each other, second guessing all his life choices. “Oh god,” he croaks again, words failing him.

“Seriously Pat, if this is another one of your weird requests—”

“I’m getting married,” he blurts, looking at the overstuffed church in horror. “To a celebrity. I’m marrying a _celebrity_ , Jacks!”

She rolls her eyes the way she did when Patrick first called her all those months ago, hysterical because, Jesus Christ, he landed a professional athlete for a boyfriend and how was he supposed to handle that? Her answer? ‘If he’s not out of the closet then you don’t have to handle anything, so shut the fuck up and act like an adult for once.’ She hung up on him before the tears could really start, leaving Patrick no choice but to scroll down one name and cry to his other, slightly more empathetic sister. Now, Jessica and Erica stand all the way across the church with his sniffling mother, leaving Patrick to weather Jackie’s abuse alone. “You panicked about this last week,” she sighs in absolute annoyance. “C’mon Pat, stop worrying so much.”

“Says the perpetually single person,” Pat snaps back. “I’m going to fucking laugh when you’re standing in my position, staring down the gauntlet of _death_.”

“Dramatic much?” she hisses, slapping his arm hard enough to make him wince. “And there’s no way I’ll be even half so hysterical if and when I get married. I have more composure than you on a bad day, never mind what’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life.” She slaps him again for good measure, as if to bruise the knowledge into his bones, and this time Patrick can’t help but rub the ache away. At least it gives him something to do with his sweaty ha—

Pat rips his hand away with a small shriek. “Shit, I just rubbed sweat all over my suit!”

“Relax, it’s not even wrinkled,” Jackie huffs without looking.

Patrick still bullies her into straightening the sleeve anyway, taking care to look as perfect as he can for his big day. He peeks out the church doors when Jackie finishes, only to feel his nausea return tenfold. Sure, the crowd’s big, and Patrick can already see the Blackhawks team getting rowdy in the right-hand pews, but it’s one specific Blackhawk that has him swallowing around a dry throat.

Jonny’s laughing with Sharpy up by the priest, having rolled his eyes when asked to walk down the aisle and snorting when Patrick insisted on doing it anyway. He looks amazing in his tux, and so fucking relaxed like this is all no big deal. He’s the one who asked to marry Patrick, for god’s sake. The least he could do is appear a little nervous to offset Patrick’s blooming panic. Instead, Jonny’s done nothing but smile and laugh and wrap his arm around Pat as if to emphasize their size difference as well as their differing moods.

To be honest, Patrick understands.

He grew up with three sisters after all. Although hockey has always been Jonny’s priority, Patrick spent more than his fair share of hours playing dolls and dress-up. When the girls inevitably started discussing future boyfriends and their perfect weddings, well, Patrick got swept up in the excitement. His spouse shifted genders in every scenario, but Patrick developed _ideas_ about his wedding from as early as age thirteen. Those plans solidified when Jonny asked for his hand, and Patrick found himself wrapped up in choosing cake flavors and flower arrangements and planning the guest list with his over-involved mother. Adding Jonny’s mother to the mix while Jonny and David stood off to the side looking cool as cucumbers only highlighted the weird factor, because Jonny should be the overinvolved asshole planning everything. Jonny loves planning things, going so far as to make agendas for jerking off and setting timers on his phone for grocery shopping and shit. It should’ve been Jonny.

But somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, Patrick’s the one who’s invested too much.

And Jonny’s just…laughing.

“I can’t do this,” Patrick gasps, his head stuffed full of useless thoughts. Jackie pauses in adjusting the bow on her tastefully purple bridesmaid’s dress to stare at Pat accusingly. He doesn’t even feel ashamed. “I can’t—I can’t do this. I can’t—walk out there like this is easy. I can’t smile and laugh and take photos like Jonny isn’t totally out of my league. I can’t act like he’s marrying up when he’s really marrying down, and I’m sure everyone out there knows it!”

After several seconds spent staring at each other awkwardly, Jackie says, “Well duh.”

Patrick’s crushed. It’s just the truth, but he’d rather hoped Jackie would deny everything and boost his self-esteem a little before he walks down the aisle. Instead, she confirms all his worst fears.

Like any long suffering sister would.

“Look Pat,” Jackie sighs, adjusting her bow one final time. “Jonny’s wealthy, successful and handsome. Everyone knows he’s way out of your league. Hell, you’re not even playing the same sport.” That said, she closes the meager distance separating them and places a soft hand on his trembling shoulder. “He’s also arrogant, competitive, ridiculously messy, and insensitive. He puts you on the spot to see how you’ll react, then overreacts when people push his buttons and rage-quits on life so often I’m actually shocked he hasn’t gone all unabomber on us yet. If that nutjob wanted to marry me? Screw what package he came in, I’d peace out so hard you’d never see me again.”

Patrick sniffles, touched despite himself, and moves to hug Jackie tight.

She shoves him away with a hand on his face. “Stop. You’re not ruining this dress right before we walk out in public.”

“Okay,” he agrees, dropping his arms. It takes both of their combined efforts to wipe all evidence of tears from his face and, even then, he has to wait several minutes before the swelling in his nose goes down.

The organ player, when next Patrick peeks, looks increasingly irritated as he glances from his watch, to the empty aisle, to the almost closed church doors. He’s regretting his decision to play Kanye’s “Perfect Bitch” as his wedding march right about now. Even though it’s just the beat and not the lyrics, which would give his beautiful mother a heart attack before he made it even one step down the aisle.

“Oh god,” he whispers, “Did I pick the wrong song? I did, oh god, I did.”

“Jonny agreed,” Jackie pipes up helpfully. “Besides, I doubt mom will even know what song it is.”

“She’ll know it’s _wrong,_ ” he hiccups, the tears building anew. He manfully sucks them back before Jackie can slap him for ruining all her hard work. “Everything’s wrong, Jacks. I’m a horrible husband and we’re not even _married_ yet.”

“…uh, are you kidding?”

Patrick turns to stare at her in surprise. She stares back in obvious bemusement. “What?”

“Pat,” Jackie huffs, looking wronged in a way that makes Patrick want to beat someone up, even if that someone happens to be himself. “You gave me a joint birthday gift signed P and J Toews, in _your_ handwriting. He came to Buffalo to meet us instead of spending the holiday with his own family. He gave you unrestricted access to his bank accounts. You already have inside jokes and well-worn arguments about who’s going to wash the dishes.”

“If I don’t bully him about it he’ll never clean!” Patrick cries, as incensed to hear about Jonny’s horrible messy habits as he is to see them in person. The water bottles, Jesus.

Jackie heaves in a huge breath that bulges her shoulder blades strangely, and Pat spends several seconds resisting the urge to press them back into their proper shape, only relaxing when she releases all her air in another massive breath that blows back his curls. Patrick instantly has to find a mirror, because no way will he look ridiculous and windswept during his wedding. Jonny might think he’s actually, you know, nervous.

Which he is, but damn if he’ll ever tell his competitive, control freak husband.

Husband, oh god.

“Stop blushing with that constipated look on your face,” Jackie snaps. “Bend down, you’re messing up your hair even worse.” He obeys because she’s right and, let’s face facts here, no one trusts Patrick to do right by his own damn head. Jonny outright laughed the last time Patrick came home with a fresh haircut. They returned to the barber the next day, because Jonny’s just that much of an asshole. “Enough with the rollercoaster panic attack, alright?” Jackie continues as she fusses with his curls. “I’m just saying that you’re already married in all the ways that matter, despite only being together a year. Besides, if he’s so fucking amazing, shouldn’t you be bragging instead of crying about it?”

“He’s gunna leave me,” Patrick tells his shoes. “I give it six months.”

“Challenge accepted,” Jackie deadpans. “If he leaves you before the six month mark, I’ll never make fun of you for anything ever again.”

Patrick blinks. “Wow, that’s a pretty steep bet. I’m kind of scared of the terms if you win.”

She gives his head one last, aggressive ruffle and steps back to beam at him. She’s usually so snotty that, in times like these, Patrick really has to appreciate the gooey center Jackie usually tries so hard to hide, and the circumstances that bring her out of her shell in the first place. Even if those circumstances are also making him vaguely nauseous. “You and Jonny are taking me to Italy. For a month. All paid vacation no holds barred.”

“Jesus,” Patrick laughs. “All paid for a month? Even Jonny will balk at that.”

“No he won’t,” she replies confidently. “Because he loves you like burning, and he’ll do whatever you ask whenever you ask no matter how much it costs.”

_Whatever you want, baby. I can afford it._

Blushing, Patrick turns away from his smug little sister to the overflowing church pews. The organ player has begun dicking around on his phone, while the priest picks his teeth in the reflection of a golden cross and Patrick’s mom quietly wails as Jonny’s mom pats her back in sympathy.

Then there’s Jonny of course, still laughing with hands in his pockets. Patrick wrings his sweaty fingers together and wishes he capitulated to having a bouquet after all.

“I’m scared,” he admits quietly, “I’m so scared, Jacks.”

She snorts and pinches his butt hard enough to make him jump. “Of what, booger? That loser out there?” Jackie muscles her way beside him to peek through the meager crack in the great double doors. “Look at him, Pat, he’s more nervous than you are.”

“What?” Pat grunts, “No he isn’t.” Pat shoves her aside to look closer.

“He’s rocking on his heels,” Jackie explains knowingly, her beady eyes gleaming with thoughts that, quite frankly, Patrick has no interest in hearing. “Clenching his fists. There’s sweat all over his neck, god, is that normal?”

“He runs pretty hot,” Patrick says, eyes fixed on a fat, glimmering bead at the base of Jonny’s hairline. “It’s a Winterpeg thing. Gotta store up for the next great frost, or something.”

To say that Jackie’s fed up with his bullshit would be putting the situation mildly. She pulls away from the door and straightens her dress in one sharp movement. “Jonny loves you. So just…go out there already. I’m sick of waiting back here watching you squirm.” With that, she does the absolute worst thing in the history of bad sister things to do, and shoves him out the double doors. It’s a small miracle that he doesn’t land on his face, but the bang of the doors opening has everyone looking his way. There’s a moment of still, awkward silence, just long enough for Patrick to turn bright red. His mom looks horrified, his sisters angry, Jonny’s dad embarrassed. The Blackhawks range from sympathetic to downright gleeful at Patrick stumbling all over himself like a newborn colt, and Patrick recognizes the distinct snap of a shutter. Sharpy, standing to Jonny’s left, has his phone out filming every second of Patrick’s humiliation.

Jonny just looks gob-smacked, his eyes wide and mouth a little open. He should probably be horrified, but he’s staring at Patrick like—like—

The organ begins to play before Patrick can qualify the stunned stupid look on Jonny’s face. Jackie shoves at him from behind.

He walks.

*

Although Patrick managed the majority of the wedding from top to bottom, Jonny refused to relinquish control of the reception party’s music. “I won’t have our first dance be to Gangnam Style,” he explained without pity. The bulge of his biceps when he crossed his arms had the full of Patrick’s attention, so he won that round pretty easy. Patrick admits he’s glad when something soothing and decent beings playing and his mom swoons.

Watching them attempt to navigate the dancefloor takes all the stars from everyone’s eyes.

“Stop trying to lead,” Jonny snaps, his hand attempting to curve around Patrick’s waist.

Patrick intervenes by grabbing it and hoisting it up between their chests, but Jonny has a grip like iron and easily switches their hands around so that Patrick’s is on top. Their arms knock as they each go for the other’s back at the same time. “You don’t even know how to dance,” Patrick hisses, stomping on Jonny’s foot maybe on purpose.

Jonny glares at him and totally on purpose returns the gesture. “I slow danced at David’s wedding, which is more than I can say for you, Mr. Club Scene.”

“ _Excuse_ you!” Patrick snarls. “And that’s Mr. Toews to you, _Toes_.”

If he expected Jonny to go all gooey at the reminder that Patrick really did take his name for realsies, he’d be disappointed at the furious expression on his husband’s face. But he knows Jonny all too well, and the truth of the matter is that Jonny hates when people mispronounce his name on purpose.

Jonny uses his greater strength to lift Patrick off his feet with one arm, effectively destroying all of Patrick’s hard-earned leverage. “Hey!”

“Oh I’m sorry, _Mr. Toes_.”

“If you think you’re getting a honeymoon blowjob tonight, you are so—”

“Alright, I think that’s enough,” Jonny’s dad sighs from the edge of the dancefloor. “Jonathan, please go dance with your mother.”

Reluctantly, Jonny sets Patrick down and, despite the stalemate they wound up in regarding the first dance, at least Patrick got the last word. He smiles smugly at Jonny for as long as it takes Bryan Toews to sweep Patrick up into another pseudo-waltz. “I’m leading,” he says in his typical no-nonsense voice and, because it’s his scary father-in-law, Patrick obeys without protest. This begins a long chain of family dances, with Patrick somehow following in all of them, including the one with his own mother.

“I am _not_ the wife here,” he hisses to Erica during their loop where he is, yet again, not leading.

She laughs heartily and leers, “Says the guy in a white tux.”

“I look amazing in white, thank you,” Patrick sniffs, because he knew that would come up eventually.

“You look wonderful, sweetie,” his grandma gushes as Jonny leads her around to their side of the dance floor. “Absolutely wonderful! And this young man of yours!” She blatantly grabs Jonny’s admittedly excellent biceps and squeezes until his smug smile drops into a look of mild panic. They sail away before Patrick can burst out laughing.

“Grandma’s gunna eat him alive,” Erica says.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “No doubt.”

Eventually, by some minor miracle gifted from god, the family dancing ends, and Patrick can gratefully escape to the wedding party’s table, where Jonny has already commandeered one of the two center seats with a plate of appetizers. Patrick begins eating off of it without waiting for permission. They’re married—Jonny no longer has monogamous rights to anything he eats.  

“What took you so long,” Jonny mutters as the music swells.

Patrick wants to feel affronted, but Jonny has shrimp rolls. Nothing beats a good shrimp roll. “I have a bigger family than you,” he reminds his husband pointedly.

Husband, oh god.

Patrick nearly drops his shrimp roll.

“I meant during the ceremony,” Jonny huffs, pushing the plate out of grabbing range so Patrick has no means of escape from this conversation without causing some kind of scene at his own wedding reception.

“I—” he gulps, caught out and ashamed of himself. “I was nervous.”

Jonny crinkles his eyebrows and aggressively demands, “So?” like that wasn’t the beginning and end of Patrick’s reasoning. Like nerves had no bearing on today, which might be fair, to someone who holds the weight of an entire country’s expectations on his shoulders every time he skates into the Olympics.

Patrick has no such experience, and therefore feels moderately overwhelmed by Jonny’s question. And also kind of insulted. “So?” Patrick squeaks back. “ _So_ we just got married. For life! Of course I was nervous!”

“You—” Jonny begins, and Patrick kind of expects him to rage-quit the wedding the way he rage-quit taking the trash out two weeks ago, only Jonny’s face crumples instead, and he says, “You had second thoughts?” all heartbroken and wounded, like Patrick just ruined his whole day.

Considering what day it is, Patrick feels immediately like a piece of maggot-riddled dog shit.

“No,” Patrick hisses, even if the real answer’s a little bit yes. “I just—I just realized that you’re way out of my league, okay? And it made me nervous.”

“I am not out of your league,” Jonny responds, back to indignant, “Who told you that?”

“No one!”

“Please stop fighting,” Sharp groans. He drops his big hockey playing ass on the seat by Jonny, who rolls his eyes and shoves Sharpy away from him. The man shoves back before stuffing a glazed strawberry into his mouth and continuing, “Seriously, for just one day, can you guys…not? It’s cute and all, but also uncomfortable and wrong. Be lovey-dovey or something.”

Jonny turns on his own hockey playing ass to ask, “Or something, really? That’s your suggestion?”

All he gets is a shrug in reply.

“Bullshit,” Jonny huffs, but he pulls the plate of shrimp rolls back into Patrick’s range and, when Patrick goes to grab a handful, laces their fingers. “Love you, baby,” he says under his breath like he doesn’t want anyone to hear, like it’s just for Patrick, their little not-so-secret, and Patrick can’t help but flush at the thought of keeping Jonny all to himself for just a while longer. They eat shrimp rolls until speeches, where Sharp and Jackie attempt to humiliate them as much as possible in ten horrible minutes, Patrick’s mom bursts into tears midway through her first sentence, and Jonny stands up just long enough to say, “I’m never going to love anyone else for the rest of my life,” which is effectively a mike-drop moment that leaves Patrick sweating as he tries to come up with something, anything to follow that with.

“Um,” he says into his own mike, blushing hard. Jonny puts a hand on the back of his thigh like that’s somehow supposed to soothe Patrick, but really just draws Patrick’s attention to the intently staring asshole smirking at his side. “I—uh—fuck it.”

Patrick jumps him at the table, which leads to catcalls and wolf whistles and Sharp having to bodily separate them.

Jonny looks absolutely delighted anyway.

*

“I’m not your wife, damn it!” Patrick yells.

The echo of his own voice through the hallway has him flinching and hiding his hot face in Jonny’s silently laughing chest. “Alright, Mrs. Toews,” he chuckles, squeezing his big hands around Patrick’s sides, and that just isn’t fair.

“Dirty pool,” Patrick says, all the while rubbing Jonny’s flexing shoulders. Because they’re right there and he literally can’t help himself.

“Fair,” Jonny admits gleefully, no doubt fully aware of Patrick’s inability to refuse Jonny when distracted by his damn gorgeous body. As if to put a cherry on this already humiliating cake, he opens their front door with a casual hip-check and sails across the threshold before Patrick can really give him an earful. A short kick shuts the door with a slam.

“Hey,” Patrick grunts after a full thirty seconds of walking.

Jonny peers down innocently like he’s unaware of his own actions. “What?”

“The threshold’s back there,” Patrick says with a vicious point over Jonny’s shoulder. “We’re already in the living room.”

“Are we?” Jonny looks around with feigned surprise. “Wrong room then.”

“No room, Jonathan. None! You put me down right now, you ridiculously strong asshole!”

“Was that supposed to be an insult?” Jonny asks as he does no such thing. If anything, he hefts Patrick higher and keeps right on walking because Patrick’s just that easy to manhandle for someone who regularly bench presses his own body weight. “Because if so…”

If Patrick murdered Jonny right now, no jury would convict him. “You think you’re cute,” he growls as he grabs a fistful of Jonny’s hair and yanks. The man has unfortunately high pain tolerance and doesn’t react with more than a narrowing of the eyes, so Patrick yanks again. Because reasons. “You think you’re _so_ cute, Jonathan, but guess what? You’re nothing but a big, fat, stupid—waterbed!”

“I thought that would get your attention,” Jonny laughs.

Patrick doesn’t care, too busy staring at the new addition to their bedroom, which he asked for on a whim three months ago. Jonny refused vehemently, citing the absolute necessity of his nap regimen and stringent body maintenance, both of which were complicated by a bed without proper spinal support. Patrick never wanted to do anything to jeopardize Jonny’s career so the dream died the day it was born, except not, because there it be, a waterbed, right in the middle of their condo. “Put me down,” Patrick says eagerly, squirming in Jonny’s already slackening grip.

The man drops him on the bed without fanfare, and Patrick can’t help the squeak of delight at how cool and soft the bed is beneath his back. When he sprawls, it’s like the world jiggles.

“This is _amaaaaaazing_ ,” he moans.

“Yeah?”

Patrick moans again.

“Good,” Jonny answers, sounding so quietly pleased that Patrick has to peek at his expression. Rather than the sexy intensity Patrick expected, Jonny just looks soft and fond, watching Patrick enjoy his gift the way Patrick enjoys every gift Jonny gives him, because Jonny always gives Patrick exactly what he wants. “You comfy, baby?” he asks, crawling up the bed.

“No,” Patrick answers honestly, giving Jonny some pause. “I need something to support my head.”

Jonny drolly looks at the pillows mounded against the headboard. 

“You idiot,” Patrick sighs, shoving those meager annoyances away. He lifts his head and pointedly pats the jiggly bed beneath. “Come here.” A look of comprehension briefly decorates Jonny’s face, followed not five seconds later by the giddy sort of excitement reserved only for Stanley Cup day, new exercise equipment in the gym, and Patrick cuddles. He’s an awkward goof with long limbs that, while perfectly controlled on the ice, knock into all of Patrick’s tender places while they get situated. Still, Jonny’s big and warm like a life-sized teddy bear, and Patrick loves cuddling with him more than anything else they do together. Even sex.

Oh god, he really is married if he thinks _anything_ is better than sex.

Still, when Jonny murmurs, “This is the best part of my day,” drowsily into Patrick’s hair, well. Patrick can really see what Jonny means.

*

Patrick wakes up to the loud, unpleasantly painful crunch of an empty water bottle rolling under his waiting cheek. He blinks at the unfortunately familiar creature with no small amount of spite. “Goddamn it, Jonny.”

“What?” Jonny yells from the bathroom, somehow already awake.

Patrick sits up irritably, only just now realizing that he’s still in his suit. According to the clock Patrick bought after Jonny’s weird sleep schedule fucked his internal clock up so hard he was late to work for a week straight, its barely three in the morning. Case and point regarding Jonny’s weird ass sleep schedule. Patrick already smells the distinct aroma of old spice body wash that means Jonny took a shower. Since the closet door is still closed, he’s probably standing naked in there brushing his teeth, because what are clothes for when it’s more than 30 degrees in the house, right?

There are also four water bottles in the bed with him. Just throwing that out there.

“Jonny,” Patrick grinds out the moment he notices. The culprit that woke him up crunches in his fist. “What the fuck am I buying trash cans for if you keep leaving your shit all over the bed?”

“The can is full!” he yells back.

The can is indeed full. Of water bottles, in case anyone wondered. Water bottles that Patrick purposely ordered Jonny to throw out yesterday morning. Before their wedding, after which Patrick fully intended to sex up his new husband all night long.

Water bottles are about as sexy as falling asleep in a sweaty suit.

Patrick goes about solving the latter problem while he yells at Jonny regarding the former. “You were supposed to empty the can yesterday!”

“I did!”

“So then why is it still fucking full?” Patrick aggressively tosses his suit jacket in the hamper, followed by the tight button up underneath, the tie Sharpy dipped in chocolate just for laughs, and his shoes, which desperately need a turn in the washer after all that dancing. He’s in the middle of unbuttoning his pants when Jonny wanders out with a towel around his shoulders and not a damn thing covering his naked waist. Patrick allows himself a good thirty seconds of ogling before abandoning his pants to point at the trash can. “Those are yours,” he reminds Jonny pointedly, “and as such the can is your responsibility.”

“Like I said,” Jonny argues back whilst rubbing his hair dry. “I took the can out yesterday like you asked.”

“A full can does not equal—”

The towel goes into the hamper on top of Patrick’s wrinkled suit. “I woke up thirsty, okay? I just filled that up an hour ago!”

“You—” Patrick grunts. He looks between the full can to the four bastards still floating on their bed and glares at Jonny angrily. “You’ve been up for an hour and didn’t think to take out the fucking trash?”

“I’ve been up for two,” Jonny snarls. “And no, I didn’t, since you throw a fit every time I activate the alarm panel while you’re sleeping. Can’t throw the trash outside without turning off the house alarm, Pat! Or did you forget that part?” Jonny puts his hands on his hips as if to emphasize his ridiculously stupid point, because they have a huge fucking recycle trash can in the kitchen for just such a purpose, but it occurs to Patrick rather belatedly how weird this is. They were married yesterday. Patrick’s still half dressed in his suit. Jonny’s fresh from the shower and totally naked, arguing with Patrick over water bottles.

Patrick starts laughing before he can think better of it.

“Perfect,” Jonny huffs, drooping from his aggressive stance into a petulant one. “What a way to begin our marriage. I’ll take the goddamned trash out now, alright?”

“No, don’t,” Patrick manages between giggles. He reaches his arms out until Jonny grudgingly caves to the inevitable and slinks over like a particularly prickly cat, all ready to claw and bite the instant life stops going his way. Patrick kisses his stubbly cheeks until some of the tension gathered between Jonny’s eyes eases. “You’re naked,” he tells Jonny slyly.

Jonny bull-snorts right in Patrick’s face. “I just took a shower, Pat.”

“We’re arguing about water bottles.”

“Because you have this weird issue with proper hydration—”

Patrick leans up on his tip toes and puts his lips right against Jonny’s ear. “You’re naked and arguing about water bottles instead of fucking your new husband on our wedding night.”

The fight visibly leaves Jonny’s body. “I…”

Patrick slinks away and puts on his best minx face, which he’s been told is not all that sexy, but seems to rev Jonny’s engine anyway. Or, if not his engine, at least one piston is on the rise. Patrick bites his lip and returns to the arduous task of undoing his suit pants. It’s incredibly, stupid hard to remove pants in any kind of sexy fashion. They tangle up around the thighs and come off only one leg at a time. Worse, they drag his underwear down just enough to catch on his junk in an awkward bunch that typically makes Jonny laugh. Patrick chews the corner of his lip and slowly edges toward the bed, hoping an idea will come to him between now and when he inevitably trips over the baseboard.

Jonny, unaware of anything but the promise of sex, follows like a slavering hound seeing fresh meat. “Pat, baby—”

“Grab the lube,” Patrick decides, hoping to distract Jonny from his awkward attempt to scoot the suit pants down his legs.

Except Jonny says, “Under the pillows,” like an overprepared asshole, because of course.

Patrick scowls at him. “Seriously? The last time I tried to put lube under the pillows you shouted down the condo! Something about squeezing gooey gel all over the sheets and making sleeping difficult—”

“I put our bed in the guest room. We can sleep there if anything goes wrong.”

“The gue—we have a guest room?” Patrick asks, sidetracked from his task. “Since when?”

“Since my mom complained about having nowhere to sleep when she visits and I converted the second living room. It has two beds, just in case your parents want to stay over at the same time.”

“That will not fly,” Patrick deadpans. “Four adults sharing one bathroom—”

Jonny stops his predatory advance to roll his eyes. “They’re adults. Either they get over themselves or they rent a hotel room. I don’t care which.”

“You are not making my mother rent a room on Christmas!” Patrick shrieks, sexy-times forgotten just like that. Because not even a brand new shiny husband will ever take precedence over the woman who gave birth to him.

“Who said we’re having Christmas in Chicago?” Jonny demands with crossed arms, undaunted by Patrick’s completely valid protest. The aggro-intense stare of an athlete accepting a challenge resolves itself on Jonny’s face like the wrath of god, or some other very angry deity of awesome power that’s used to getting what he wants.

But Patrick will not be deterred, because he has logic on his side this time. “Uh, says the trip we took to Buffalo last Christmas?”

The breath Jonny heaves out actually steams like a cartoon bull, and Patrick would laugh until he peed at such a beautiful moment, except that trick of laughing an argument away will only work once on someone as ridiculously competitive as Jonny. And Patrick’s already used his get out of jail free card for the night, something Jonny makes perfectly clear when he says “Oh, and we’re just conveniently forgetting that my side of the family lives in Canada, is that it?” with a mean glare.

Which, way to make Patrick’s argument for him. Patrick rolls his head back in exasperation and yells, “You can afford to fly your family anywhere!” at the ceiling.

He does not expect Jonny to roar “Exactly!”, uncrossing his arms to throw them up in the air. “I can afford to fly the family out anywhere for Christmas! We did Buffalo last year, now it’s my turn to celebrate the holidays in _my_ hometown!”

“We-what?” Patrick asks.

Jonny glares back heatedly. “I want Christmas in Canada this year.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Patrick summarizes testily. “I meant this whole—flying the family out. If we’re having Christmas in Canada, they don’t have to fly anywhere. Which is my point!”

“What, so you want your parents to drive, is that it?” Jonny demands out of left field. “What about your sisters? Think any of them can afford taking that much time off school to drive across the border?  Jesus, Pat, none of them know how to drive in the snow!”

“Buffalo gets snow!” Patrick reminds Jonny, because Jonny sometimes forgets that the world isn’t separated into amazing tropical paradises and Canada. “We have snow tires and everything! Hell, I took my driving test during the worst snow storm New York had seen in five years!”

“You have never been to Canada,” is all Jonny responds with, which, rude.

“ _Someone_ hasn’t taken me,” Patrick throws back.

Only Jonny rolls his eyes, re-crosses his gorgeous arms like a distracting asshole, and says, “I’m trying to plan a trip right now, but you’re weirdly against it.”

“I’m just saying that my family—”

“ _Our_ family.”

All of Patrick’s words jam up against his teeth in a pile of offensively worded grammar and expletives. He swallows around his own misunderstanding and croaks, “What?”

“Our family,” Jonny grunts, his scowl deepening. “Did you seriously forget we’re married?”

Patrick hadn’t. In point of fact, this started because he very desperately wanted to consummate their wedding before the sun came up, if only to say he did the deed on a waterbed. The repercussions of their marriage, on the other hand, Patrick totally did forget. Oh shit, they’re _married_. They share family now. He—he can call Andree mom if he wants to. He can make bro jokes with David, and introduce David’s lovely supermodel wife as his sister, and call Jonny’s dad begging for birthday advice because what did someone buy a rich Canadian athlete anyway? “You,” Patrick begins weakly, “You’d fly my family to Canada?”

Jonny stares at Patrick, his whole face one big ‘duh.’

“Y—even grandma?”

“I,” Jonny begins pointedly, “will straight up buy a motherfucking plane before I make my husband spend the holidays away from his parents. Okay?”

“Fuck me,” Patrick breathes, so helplessly in love with this man he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He still wants to throw every empty water bottle in Jonny’s dumb face and smack him with a newspaper whenever Jonny forgets to take out the trash, but damn. Patrick can’t imagine loving anyone else even half as much.

Even when Jonny says, “I was trying to,” in an irritated voice with a very sharp glance at his somehow still raging boner.

Patrick, too, looks down. “Right, I forgot about that.”

Jonny stalks across the room and literally pushes Patrick to the bed. The unsupported nature of the waterbed means that Patrick damn near rolls onto the floor and vomits before Jonny hops on top of him. After all his earlier agonizing, Jonny simply yanks Patrick’s pants off in one fell swoop and wraps his huge bear paw around Patrick’s entire crotch. The argument rather deflated Patrick’s interest, but he’s quick to resurge from there. “Jonny,” he whines, clawing his way around Jonny’s stupidly broad shoulders. “C’mon, stop teasing.”

“ _I’m_ teasing?” Jonny growls back. “Seriously? I’m not the one bringing up our parents.”

“You are now!”

“Because you did first! I’m just—” Patrick reaches down and silences that argument right there, because Jonny is right about one thing. Parents should never be the topic of conversation in the bedroom. Ever. Luckily, Jonny’s obsessive personality has distinctly categorized levels, and sex with Patrick easily trumps winning arguments in Jonny’s warped little mind. After a moment of deep, sexy breathing, Jonny rumbles, “Grab the lube,” with dark animal eyes.

No one needs to tell Patrick twice.

*

“Ow.”

“What now,” Jonny groans.

Patrick rolls just enough to watch the way Jonny’s muscles flex as he loads an empty trash bag with all of his discarded water bottles. “My body hurts.”

“Boo hoo,” Jonny says in a voice bordering on energetic, if the border was about three thousand miles away from the finish line. He rolls his big athlete shoulders back and crawls a few feet to reach the bottles that rattled under the bed during their…activities.

His ass, encased only in the thinnest of boxers, quickly catches Patrick’s attention. “Jonny.”

“What?” his voice demands irritably from the floor.

“I’m horny.”

“You _just_ said you were in pain.”

Patrick inches his aching body to the end of the bed and peers over, where Jonny’s somehow already glaring at him. “That was then,” he informs Jonny imperiously.

“Fine,” Jonny huffs like having sex with Patrick is some kind of chore, despite how very much they both enjoy it. “Let me toss this bag and grab a snack.” He surges up and walks out of the room without a backwards glance at Patrick’s enraged pout.

Patrick creaks over onto his back and counts the ceiling freckles, which he secretly places with a permanent marker whenever Jonny isn’t looking. Somehow, Jonny has yet to notice Patrick’s continuous defacement of their property. Probably because he sleeps face down, if Patrick is being honest, but Patrick also likes to think he’s just that sneaky. Like a ninja.

He’s on freckle seventy-one when Jonny wanders back in with an armful of food and—

“No,” Patrick says upon seeing what dangles from Jonny’s hand.

“Yes,” Jonny volleys back. He drops a family-sized bag of chips, some baby carrots, a can of diet Dr. Pepper, two milky ways, and a six pack of water bottles on the nightstand. “I’m thirsty.”

Patrick looks at the damn water bottles in horror. “No. You just emptied our room!”

“Like I said, I’m thirsty.”

“I bought you an industrial water bottle! It’s huge, and non-disposable!”

“And makes everything taste like metal,” Jonny says with a moody frown. He crawls up the waterbed with easy grace and flops beside Patrick like he still expects sex after bringing the forbidden talisman into their bedroom. “I hate that water bottle,” he summarizes mercilessly, slamming the point home with unnecessary force.

“I’m buying you a plastic one then,” Patrick scowls. “I will buy you a thousand permanent ones before I succumb to your weird water bottle fetish.”

“It’s not weird,” Jonny attempts to argue, which, he’s done that a thousand times before. Something about being made of seventy percent water and high performance athleticism. Patrick stopped listening right around the time Jonny started pulling up statistics and studies on his phone. Suffice to say, Patrick does not believe Jonny for shit. The fastest way to sidetrack Jonny is with his ultimate weakness, so Patrick leans across the squishy sheets and plants one on his husband’s open mouth. Jonny starts kissing back immediately. “We’re not finished,” he gasps during one of their very few breathing breaks.

It takes Patrick a long minute to work up the air to gasp back, “You wanna talk about water or have sex again?”

“I wanted to eat,” Jonny reminds Patrick between aggressive vampire bites to Patrick’s neck.

Wryly, Patrick asks, “The chips or me?”

“Ideally both,” Jonny replies with Patrick’s skin still in his mouth. It’s not at all sexy, but a ridiculous wave of fondness for this moron drowns Patrick in a murky sea of heart-shaped fish and, suddenly, Patrick’s not all that horny anymore.

“C’mon off,” he says, detaching Jonny with much effort. The dude’s stupid strong. “Food first, I guess. The sex can wait.”

Jonny huffs and mumbles, “It’s like you’re bipolar,” with a glare. Patrick should probably feel offended, but he’s warm and aching pleasantly in the arms of his husband, and Patrick just cannot find the energy to argue anymore. He leans over Jonny for the Dr. Pepper and chips. Jonny watches him pop the can and rip open the bag before heaving an overdramatic sigh and going for his carrots. By the time Patrick has finished his soda, Jonny has drunk half the water bottles and stolen exactly three chips from Patrick’s bag. They share one milky way before Jonny unilaterally decides snack time is over and rolls on top of Patrick pointedly.

Patrick smears the remaining chocolate across Jonny’s bottom lip. “Mmh, sexy,” he teases.

“I have chocolate sauce in the fridge,” Jonny admits like it’s a shameful crime. Since Jonny rarely indulges in, well, anything, Patrick knows Jonny bought the sauce for him. Probably because there’s a matching carton of ice cream hiding in the freezer.

Still, what an image. “Later,” Patrick decides when he realizes the kitchen is halfway across the condo. He hooks his arms around Jonny’s neck and pulls until the behemoth deigns to lower onto his Popeye forearms for a sweet kiss. Patrick slowly spreads his knees until Jonny’s weight teeters between them, and Jonny’s pretty abdominals work to make the landing easy.

“Lube?” Jonny asks, one paw already groping around.

Patrick pulls back to glare at Jonny sharply. “Really? Exactly when do you think I had time to shower that shit out of me?”

“I’m starting to understand what Sharp meant when he called you Sassy Patty the other day.”

The disgust Patrick feels at that statement cannot go unvoiced. “Are you really listening to the advice of a man who calls another grown man Peek-a-boo?”

Jonny smirks and answers, “Not his fault you’re short.”

Patrick glares, and glares, and finally says, “You are _so lucky_ you have a big dick.”

As if he knows he won that round which, really he didn’t, Patrick just deferred argument to a later date, Jonny follows up that extremely accurate burn with a throaty, “Condom?”

He’s been asking that since day one and, up until this very moment, Patrick has always had a few on hand. STD’s are a thing in gay culture, the same way unwanted babies are a thing in straight culture, and Patrick has never in his life been stupid enough to risk either. Neither of them thought to get tested in the past year, which didn’t actually occur to Patrick until this very moment, but staring up at Jonny’s waiting face makes Patrick reconsider all of his life choices a second time. He has always used a condom. Always. Patrick has no idea if he even likes it bare.

But who better to test this theory with than his husband?

“No,” he decides, quietly, unable to relish the shock on Jonny’s face when his own heart is clamoring so hard. “No, just—just put it in, okay?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you waiting for, another Cup? Do it before I change my mind!”

Jonny jolts like he’s been electrocuted and wastes no time diving a hand between their bodies. It’s hot and slippery and weirdly intimate, with Jonny’s eyes wide and Patrick gulping for breath every time he feels Jonny’s vein throb inside him. Patrick doesn’t realize he’s yelling until Jonny gasps “Baby—the neighbors—”

“Fuck the neighbors!” Patrick yelps. He grabs two overflowing handfuls of Jonny’s ass and throws his head back. “Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop!”

“Okay,” Jonny promises raggedly, “whatever you want, baby, whatever—”

He’s interrupted by this weird popping sound, and Patrick has a moment to curse whatever fucking thing decided to ruin the best sex Patrick has ever had, when there’s a loud whoosh of water. He and Jonny go sliding toward the wall as the bed deflates in one horrible gush of ice cold retribution. Jonny rolls just enough that he’s the one slamming into the doorway with a barked grunt, while Patrick yelps through the ridiculously weird feeling of a dick sliding out of him with unceremonious force. They both freeze in the inch-deep water.

“I knew that bed was a bad fucking idea,” Jonny snarls.

“My ass,” Patrick whimpers.

“My dick,” Jonny snaps back, “and my back, and _my_ fucking ass, and—”

“You have higher pain tolerance than me!”

“I still feel it, for fuck’s sake!” He gets up on one elbow and looks over his shoulder at the great bruise already welling there. His dick, now that Patrick’s noticed, really does look raw. Patrick’s ass throbs in sympathy. “And now the floor’s all fucking wet! I’m sure Dolores downstairs is already calling management.”

Patrick huffs, having forgotten about good ole Dolores, and mutters, “Good thing you’re rich.”

“Oh, I’m making you write that check,” Jonny vows menacingly.

Since Patrick wanted the waterbed, and made Jonny fuck him bare, and yelled at him not to stop, Patrick figures that’s a perfectly valid demand to make in this situation. He’s still put out though. “Man,” he sighs, creaking up onto his knees, “and that was some of the best sex we’ve ever had.”

Jonny, too, sits up. “Yeah.” He rolls his bruised shoulder and winces. “I have to call Q, get the doc out here. You contact management and have them send a cleanup crew.”

“Great.” He hates talking to management, who croon at Jonny’s bank account then sneer about their gay tenants behind Jonny’s back. Patrick has literally seen the fuckers do it. He is not on very good terms with management. Jonny knows it too, and he glares at Pat while rotating his shoulder until Patrick groans onto his feet and says, “I’m getting clothes, Jesus, impatient asshole.”

“You want the water to soak through?”

“If it pisses off Dolores? Abso-fucking-lutely,” Patrick says without mercy.

Jonny grunts an acknowledgement—neither of them especially like Dolores, who complains all the time about their noise and has tried suing Jonny for various damages several times. “I’m buying a house,” he mutters.

“You have a house already,” Patrick reminds him from the closet as he winces into a pair of sweatpants. There’s a teeny bit of blood on his thighs which, great, he tore. That means no more sex for at least a week. Fucking waterbed.

“I need another one, here in Chicago, where people never leave me the fuck alone.”

“Is that all, princess?”

Jonny glares at Patrick the moment he exits the closet and says, “And a dog. A fucking mean one, like a Rottweiler or a pit bull.”

Since both of them know that none of this will ever happen, Patrick nods along and splashes toward the nightstand for his cellphone. Far in the distance, he can already hear the kitchen land line ringing with the demanding tone reserved only for management. Jonny tells him the phone always sounds the same no matter who’s calling, but Patrick knows the difference. He’s never been wrong. “I’m calling management,” he sighs, scooping up his cell. The other he waddles over to drop in Jonny’s waiting hands. “Don’t keep Q waiting or you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“He’s going to be pissed about this,” Jonny snarls at the phone. “Training starts in two weeks.”

“It’s a bruise, Jonathan.”

“It’s my job, _Patrick_.”

Glaring mutinously at each other, both of them begin to dial.

*

The media, being ridiculous mangy alley cats sniffing for scraps, posts the story within half an hour. Stupid headlines like DROWNING IN LOVE? and TSUNAMI IN PARADISE make Patrick quietly seethe as smelly construction guys shuffle around their condo. Jonny spends the next week going to endless doctor’s appointments and physical therapy sessions, where they confirm over and over again that his shoulder’s bruised and nothing more. Two weeks later, they’ve moved their old bed back into the bedroom alongside some hastily bought furniture and shoes. Jonny practices rotating his shoulder for fifteen minutes every hour. His dedication and discipline, while objectively sexy, is subjectively annoying.

Dolores makes no less than ten trips up to their floor, seventeen personal phone calls, and one ridiculous skype conversation that ends with lawyers.

“We need to move,” Jonny says in a voice of doom the moment the screen goes dark.

Patrick can’t even argue with him.

He dicks around hunting for new apartments and houses while Jonny does his stupid exercises. Patrick finds an absolutely sick condo in Trump Tower, but Jonny takes one look at the name on the building and nopes right out of the room. They yell the various pros and cons of moving into Trump owned property for the better part of four hours before Jonny uses his celebrity to shut the argument down hard. Apparently, he’s met Donald Trump before, and he has _opinions_.

So, they do not move into Trump Tower.

He’s still looking when the doctors clear Jonny for rigorous activity again, and Jonny comes slinking into the room like a panther on the hunt.

Patrick’s instantly wary. “What?”

“What do you think?” Jonny asks, already reaching for his pants. Patrick, whose ass still stings even after two weeks of gentle treatment, slams back into the headboard so hard the drywall cracks. Jonny looks suitably outraged. “We just had that wall replaced!”

“No!” is all Patrick can reply with. “No, nope, not happening. You keep your dick away from my ass.”

“What, why?” Jonny scowls.

“Uh, because I’m fucking torn inside and it hurts? Like, I reopen that thing every time I take a shit, Jonny.”

Jonny sags and grumbles, “Way to be sexy,” before flopping onto the bed with a sigh. “Remember the good old days when our lives seemed so damn easy?”

“You mean the day I threw up on you and we spent half the night in jail together? Oh yeah, real easy.” Patrick watches Jonny for another few wary seconds before deciding the environment safe enough to rejoin. He has a lot of damn condos to scroll through. “Any word from Dolores’ lawyer?”

“She’s still seeking damages for her undamaged ceiling, with the added bonus of emotional distress.”

Patrick snorts. “From what? Our loud married sex?”

“The construction crews walking too much and keeping her from her daytime soaps.”

Patrick cannot, in good conscience, touch that with a ten-foot pole. He scowls at nothing and once more laments the strange problems of wealthy people. Everyone wants something. Now that he’s wealthy by marriage, he fully expects the awkward requests to come flying in from eager gold diggers looking to make a buck. As it stands, he has his mom screen his email, just in case. “How do you feel about duplexes?” he asks instead.

“No more close neighbors.”

“Right,” Patrick sighs. He clicks through a few more pages morosely. “What about someplace without a gym?”

“Room for one in the condo?”

Patrick clicks around some more, sighs, and admits “No.” At least, not for the comprehensive type of gym Jonny wants. “Just some weights and a treadmill, if we’re judicious.”

“No.”

Well, that’s about all the patience Patrick has for house hunting today. He closes the laptop and tosses it onto the nightstand before crawling over to Jonny, who’s practically sleeping despite the way his feet hang over the edge of the bed. His shoulder, at least, is no longer a no-fly zone. Jonny grunts a little when Patrick lays there, but he’s quick to drag Patrick closer anyway, which is all that damn well matters. Despite everything, like Jonny said, this is the best part of the day. “Love you,” he admits happily.

“What the fuck is that black shit on the ceiling?” Jonny replies.

Patrick refuses to feel ashamed. “Permanent marker.”

He can already hear Jonny’s scowl. “Why is it on my ceiling?”

“Oh, it’s your ceiling now? What happened to ‘this is _our_ family, this is _our_ condo.’” Patrick puts in just enough effort to make quotes with his fingers before dropping his arm down hard on Jonny’s stomach.

Asshole doesn’t even grunt. “I bought the condo, it’s my goddamned ceiling, and if I wanted a pattern on there, it would be up there!”

“Huh, since it already _is_ up there, you must’ve wanted it an awful lot.”

“Patrick…”

His warning tone is completely unnecessary, but Patrick really does not want to end the cuddling so soon after beginning, so he moans and buries his face in Jonny’s armpit. “We’re moving anyway, what does it matter?”

Jonny’s silent for so long that Patrick actually starts feeling concerned, except Jonny lets out a great sigh and turns his head into Patrick’s hair. “You’re scrubbing that off.”

“Uh, it’s _permanent_ marker?”

“Then you’ll be scrubbing a long damn time,” Jonny argues mercilessly.

Which is the moment Patrick realizes that he’s absolutely gone on this man. So gone that he can no longer see his way back home. Jonny’s done nothing but argue with him these past two weeks. Their sex, while always amazing because duh, has also been pretty terrible since the wedding. Jonny’s goddamned water bottle army sits sentinel on every flat surface in the room, watching them cuddle and bicker about permanent marker that Patrick put on the ceiling only because he knew it would piss Jonny off.

He can never let Jackie know that she was one hundred percent right when she said they were perfect for each other. Jonny isn’t out of his league.

They’ve been playing the same damn game all along.

*

“Oh, this is absolutely lovely dear, thank you,” Patrick’s grandmother gushes the moment they enter the hotel room.

Jonny, who’s still a little afraid of the tottering old woman, smiles stiffly and helps her toward the massive King bed. “Of course, ma’am,” he says politely, “I wouldn’t make you sleep in anything less.”

“Holy shit, did you see this view?” Erica shrieks from down the hall.

Patrick thanks god that Jonny bought out the whole floor.

“We all see the view,” Jackie huffs from directly behind him. She rolls her eyes and jerks her head at the floor to ceiling glass windows circling the suite. Outside, the warm Italian sky glitters with impending sunset, and Patrick hates himself for noting how gorgeous Jonny looks surrounded by that particular shade of red. “Out of my way, booger.”

Patrick glares at her, just so she knows he’s aware of her bullshit, before stepping aside.

She, predictably, takes the largest room.

Jonny appears sans grandma, his face just this shy of peaked, and Patrick instantly wants to smooth back Jonny’s ridiculous hair and give his wrinkled forehead a kiss. Turns out, domesticity is kind of his thing. “Has everyone grabbed a room?” Jonny asks beneath his breath. His dark eyes scan the hallway for stragglers that, Patrick’s surprised to note, are absent.

“I guess?” he says upon realizing that they’re effectively alone.

Jonny breaths out a small sigh. “Good,” he murmurs, “That’s good.”

“Thank you,” Patrick thinks to say in the resulting quiet. He gives into the urge to smooth Jonny’s hair and watches in quiet amazement as the larger man sags closer. What did he do to deserve this ridiculous maniac, who willingly spent several thousand dollars on a last minute trip to Italy, simply because Patrick lost a bet during his own damn wedding?

The details, of which, remain forever a mystery to his worrywart of a husband.

Still, Jonny’s lack of knowledge on the specifics only makes this gesture even more sweet, because who agrees to something like this? With absolutely no explanation, no less? Italy’s beautiful in the summer, sure, and Jonny has the money to spare, but come on.

Patrick did nothing but ask.

“Any idea which room is ours?” Jonny inquires softly, his pale eyelashes fluttering shut the longer Patrick pets his hair.

Patrick leans up to kiss him, just because. “No.” They kiss again, slightly longer but still chaste, before Patrick finds the will to pull away. Jonny watches him do so with warm velvet eyes, his big hands wrapping around Patrick’s hips possessively. “Probably the smallest room,” Patrick admits with the slightest hint of embarrassment, because he can’t help that his family all take shameless advantage of the celebrity Patrick still can’t believe he married.

“Good,” Jonny says again, like he’s totally unaware of how much money he dropped on this trip and is therefore, by default, deserving of the best of everything he pays for. “As long as everyone’s comfortable.”

“You mean as long as they left us a King bed.”

Jonny quirks a suggestive eyebrow and leers. “I’d take a Queen.”

“Still not wearing garters,” Patrick sighs, because yeah, that happened. “For the last time, those stockings were a fluke, okay? Erica made me try them before she bought them, since our thighs are about the same width.”

Jonny’s hands flex around his hips. “They looked great.”

“Which is why she bought them,” Patrick reminds Jonny pointedly. “Still not happening.”

“I bought Italy,” Jonny claims with renewed fire, somehow coming back to life the moment Patrick in stockings appears on the table. Even after a terrible hockey season that ended far too early, and grandma demanding Jonny sit next to her on the plane, and the crazy time difference that left Jonny and Jonny’s weird sleep schedule dragging ass, somehow Patrick still revved that engine.  

It was electrifying in the best way. “You did not,” Patrick argues just for argument’s sake. “First of all, even if country buying was a thing that existed, you and your measly $10 mil a year could not afford it. Secondly—” He doesn’t actually have a second point, so Patrick has to start bullshitting pretty hard here. “Secondly, even if you _did_ buy a whole country, that does not give you the right to demand a man wear stockings.” He would absolutely wear stockings if Jonny went that far for him.

“I can demand whatever I want,” Jonny huffs, no doubt sensing in his weird instinctive hockey way that Patrick is quickly nearing the point of no return in this argument. “Besides, what’s the big deal? You’re too sexy not to wear them again.”

“Calling me sexy will not get you what you want.” Yes, it will. It will one hundred and thirty percent of the time, because Patrick is nothing if not easy for this ridiculous beast.

To be honest, he maybe sort of already bought the stockings and stuffed them in his bag.

You know, just in case.

Not that Jonny needs to know or anything. He’s not _that_ easy.

Even when Jonny pouts and flexes his big hands again, like he knows how much Patrick likes feeling his husband’s strength, before leaning down to deposit the sweetest, most chaste kiss in the entirety of their relationship upon Patrick’s waiting lips. “I have them in my bag,” Patrick admits in an embarrassed rush. Oh god, he actually is that easy.

The flash of Jonny’s white teeth is all it takes to rev Patrick all the way up to eleven.

“Shut up,” Patrick says.

Unfortunately, they have no idea which room is theirs and, after spending a fruitless few minutes stomping up and down the hallway, Jonny slams down the stairs to buy another room. “Stockings,” he reminds Patrick with a heated stare, his lips shiny from kisses. Patrick swallows hard and bobble heads over to his bag, waiting at the top of the stairs, because the valets or butlers or whatever the hell Italian hotels used to carry rich people’s bags around didn’t know which room was theirs either.

“Pat?” Jackie asks bemusedly from her room at the end of the hall.

Patrick glares at her as menacingly as he can manage which, considering her droll eyebrow raise, is not fulfilling its purpose, and growls, “Not one word.”

“We’re visiting the Vatican tomorrow,” she replies haughtily. “I want to meet the Pope.”

“That’s now how the Catholic church works,” Patrick reminds her for the thousandth time since he called her two weeks ago, begrudgingly admitting that, yeah, they made it through the six damn months. She nearly laughed herself sick then, and she does the same now, before shutting the door without another word.

“Room 302!” he hears Jonny yell from one floor down and, well.

Like hell he’s hesitating this time.

Patrick runs.


End file.
